Re: Where should a VFD be placed in relation to the machine? It depends...
Wanting to keep my Holbrook looking original and having a phobia of trailing cables, I opted for...
In the (enormous cast iron) base cabinet, next to the suds tank - in the useful cubbyhole just big enough to pass a retro ABB VFD through!
So, it still needed to be accessible for maintenance, configuration etc - I put it on a tray mounted with cut-down computer rack slides and brackets to the front and rear inner walls of the base - 1/2" of cast iron tapped 0BA, the holes then "capped" with epoxy putty on the outside so they didn't show:
The tray is shown as-welded, mocked-up in place with the VFD, and retracted, there's also a "bridge" over the tray for cable glands.
The cubbyhole and suds tank are covered by a huge cast-aluminium panel with ventilation louvres (with swarf-proof mesh added), so it doesn't show
The VFD has since been smartened up with some filler and paint, as has the lathe base, and has been joined by a smaller VFD to run the suds pump and a 24V AC relay to switch the suds on and off with the motor starting and stopping (there's a suds pushbutton with an indicator lamp on the original control head that now toggles the AC supply to the suds VFD to give a choice of suds or not).
Dave H.